Blood in the Water
by Honorat
Summary: One shot. Just a retelling of the scene in the cave of Isla de Muerta after Jack has been abandoned by the Interceptor and captured by Barbossa's crew.


One shot—Just a retelling of the scene in the cave of Isla de Muerta after  
Jack has been abandoned by the Interceptor and captured by Barbossa's  
crew.

Disclaimer: The movie belongs to Disney, the performances to Johnny  
and Jeffrey, the dialogue to Ted and Terry, the envy to me.

Blood in the Water  
By Honorat Selonnet

Jack stood alone in the midst of a crowd of sixty men he had  
not seen for ten years—men with whom he had worked and lived, men at  
whose sides he had drunk and fought, men whom he had once commanded.  
They surrounded him now with weapons drawn. By the light of burning  
torches, he searched their faces and found not one friendly one, not  
one free of hatred and bloodlust. They circled him like sharks  
moving in for the kill. Every last one of them. It had been ten  
years since they had left him to die on that island, ten years for  
the scar tissue to grow over that wound. But seeing them now, the  
sense of betrayal returned as fresh as a new sword cut, as though  
time had frozen for him as well as for them.

They split apart now to open a path for their Captain to  
approach their captive. Hector Barbossa strode towards Jack like the  
incarnation of old nightmare—the hardest bitten and dirtiest fighter  
of a hard bitten and dirty fighting bunch. The slow-acting poison  
that had finally spread throughout the Black Pearl. Barbossa had  
clawed and slashed his way to the top of this heap of human refuse.  
Jack had merely been his final obstacle—and not a particularly  
difficult one. Or so Barbossa had thought. As an immortal himself,  
captain of a crew of men who could not die, it perhaps shouldn't have  
surprised Barbossa to see a dead man standing before him. But he had  
been so sure he had sent Jack to his death—to a slow and painful and  
very conscious death. There had been nothing on that island. No  
food. No water. Yet here the man was, as alive and well and  
infuriating as ever. Barbossa stalked up to his former captain,  
aware that his men were avidly following this confrontation. He  
sneered down at the man he had once dismissed as an impossible  
weakling, but who appeared to have reserves of survival Barbossa  
couldn't imagine. "How the blazes did you get off that island?" he  
demanded incredulously. The crew swiveled to observe what Jack would  
answer to this question.

Jack leaned heavily on an oar, his hands crossed over the  
blade as though he were perfectly relaxed. He knew the pose would  
irritate Barbossa, but that was merely a bonus. Only Jack himself  
knew how much that prop was necessary. In reality, he was about  
ready to drop with exhaustion and pain. He had not slept for more  
than a day. First the battle with the storm, then the treacherous  
navigation to Isla de Muerta and through the ship graveyard. He  
hadn't dared leave those to anyone else. Then that bloody blacksmith  
had cracked him over the head and left him to the mercies of  
Barbossa's crew. Jack had no illusions that they would leave him  
alive unless he outthought them very quickly. But he could scarcely  
think at all. His head pounded like a storm-tide against cliffs.  
His vision kept fading to dark and flashing lightning in time to  
stabs of pain behind his eyes. And so he clung to the wavering oar  
with assumed nonchalance, forcing his shaking fingers to remain  
still. And he smiled. One did not bleed in water that swarmed with  
sharks.

"When you marooned me on that godforsaken spit of land," he  
explained, "you forgot one very important thing, mate." Jack paused  
with an orator's instinct for drawing in an audience. All eyes  
followed him. Daring to release the oar with at least one hand, he  
managed to wave his spread fingers in a shadow of his flamboyant  
revelatory gesture. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow!" he proclaimed, his  
voice soft with mock sympathy, his eyes wide with innocent surprise.  
His tone implied that surely anyone with the least modicum of  
intelligence would never have assumed that anything so ineffectual as  
a desert island could slow down the legendary pirate captain, but  
beneath the show lay a bitterness that spoke of painful memory and  
implacable hatred.

Barbossa heard that steel under those dulcet tones. Stepping  
threateningly closer to Jack he replied with equally deceitful  
congeniality, "Ah, well, I won't be making that mistake—again."

Jack had returned to gripping the oar with both hands and now  
rested his chin on them as well. The effect was remarkably  
insouciant as well as practical. He had nearly blacked out with the  
extra effort of that little performance and now he was barely holding  
on to his upright position.

Resisting the urge to slap that annoying face, Barbossa  
turned to his crew. "Gents," he smiled with false civility, "you all  
remember Captain Jack Sparrow?" He made the title an insult. The  
crew murmured their agreement. It was not a friendly sound. Turning  
back to his impassive enemy, Barbossa smirked. But while playing  
mind-games with Jack Sparrow was amusing, and hurting him would be  
even more amusing, he had no time for such diversions. Sparrow was  
obviously too canny and slippery for such indulgence. He was a  
problem best solved immediately. Wiping all traces of good humour  
from his face, Barbossa spun about and faced the crew again. "Kill  
him," he ordered.

The cave echoed with the sound of dozens of pistols being  
cocked. Jack found himself looking down the barrels of more firearms  
than he was personally comfortable with. He'd been shot before, and  
it was not an experience he cared to repeat. Now was the time to  
talk fast. Barbossa was walking off as though Jack's death were a  
matter of little importance—a disagreeable business best left to  
underlings.

Jack lifted his head but didn't raise his voice or change his  
slouched posture. He knew Barbossa would hear. "The girl's blood  
didn't work, did it?" he remarked.

Barbossa froze, his back to Jack. Much as he knew better  
than to leave Jack Sparrow alive long enough to say anything at all,  
that topic was sufficient to rivet the attention of any of the cursed  
pirates. Jack was not acting like a man who knew he held a weak  
hand. Why, after all, had he been in this cave anyway? Surely the  
disappearance of the girl and the medallion was not unconnected to  
his arrival. What had he been up to before he had been captured?  
What was he still up to? What information did he possess that gave  
him that sublime confidence? While Barbossa knew Jack to be  
extremely capable of bluffing, he could not afford to take that  
risk. "Hold your fire!" he ordered in exasperation.

The pirates reluctantly lowered their weapons, the sound of  
hammers being released filling the cave. Discontented grumblings  
rose from their ranks. They'd been looking forward to drilling Jack  
so full of holes his hide would never hold water. But necessity  
would have to come before pleasure. Barbossa turned to meet Jack  
Sparrow's serious dark eyes and faint mocking smile. Whatever he saw  
there seemed to decide him, and he stalked towards his greatest  
enemy. He nodded, an insincere smile on his face. "You know whose  
blood we need," he said. It was not a question.

Jack tilted his head. His voice was even softer, satisfied,  
triumphant. Barbossa was his now. "I know whose blood you need." His  
slow smile glittered gold in the torchlight—the grin of a single  
shark tasting blood in the water.

End


End file.
